891 [Ascendance Of The Goddess of Sins and Virtues] 12/?: Utter Defeat
-----
Kireina smiled as she saw the Yggdrasil Sprout be covered with the Teleportation Formation.
"It's ready…" she said with a pleasant smile, admiring the creation she had made.
Flash.
Scarlet quickly appeared at her side while munching something.
"Mommy, we are done!" she said, as the other family members Kireina sent after the Gods came back.
"Good girl… Oh? Did you just ate Ares?" asked Kireina in surprise.
"Ares? Was that his name?" asked Scarlet curiously.
Kireina raised her eyebrows, even she was surprised about her daughter's abilities sometimes.
"Anyways, this probably means that the Gods are coming, everyone, hurry! Ares probably teleported faster here because he appeared near Scarlet…" said Kireina, opening a portal inside her Divine Realm and getting everyone inside quickly!
And then, a second after!
Flash! Flash! Flash! Flash!
A distortion in space occurred, as space itself warped and distorted, and several figures emerged through a Teleportation Spell!
"So they have Teleportation Crystals… Well, I already knew they had some, but every single one of them… this might end up being more troublesome than I thought," thought Kireina, her crimson eyes glaring at the group of Gods with a faked concern.
"Hah! We got you!" said Hermes, as several large spheres of light and thunder began to float around him.
"Stop where you are, Kireina, we got you surrounded!" said Artemis, pointing at Kireina with her bow and an enormous arrow made with Wind Attribute Divinity.
"So this is the real deal?" asked Dyonisos while rubbing his belly, he began to emanate a golden aura all around his body, which shaped as long vines.
"Her aura… it affects your mind too?" asked Aphrodite, who was using several Divine Techniques over her mind to not be affected by Kireina's powerful Eldritch Existence, which warped the perception of reality of anyone that watched at her that was not charmed.
"Damn it!" said Kireina, as she gnashed her teeth and unleashed her enormous chaotic and void aura, defending herself from the attacks showering over her!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
"Keep firing, kill her!" roared Artemis, firing her arrows constantly over Kireina!
"Die!" said Hermes, as he unleashed his spheres of light and thunder, which detonated into loud explosions that released powerful shockwaves!
"Perish!" said Dyonisos, firing beams of pure life against Kireina.
"Drown into a sea of illusory sensations!" said Aphrodite, unleashing her special Divine Techniques that began to warp reality and create illusions that materialized and attacked Kireina!
Athena also attacked with her own abilities, summoning grimoires around her which unleashed several abilities of all types, most of them were stolen from Divine Beasts through a similar but even better power than the one that Ismena had.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Kireina was constantly showed with immensely strong divinity attacks, covered in divinity devouring to boot!
The Gods couldn't let her get anywhere else and kept firing attacks constantly!
After several seconds, the Gods stopped as they swallowed saliva, glancing at what was left behind the smoke…
And there was…
"She…" muttered Hermes.
"She escaped…" sighed Athena.
"Damn it! Where did she go to? Let's follow her!" said Artemis.
"We can't completely detect where she went unless she flew towards somewhere near our troops, we have to ask Baltis for it," said Aphrodite.
"Well… at the very least we managed to push her away, the Yggdrasil Sprout is safe…" sighed Dyonisos in relief, as he flew near the tree, seeing as the formation quickly dissipated, any material that made it up turned into ashes afterward.
The group of gods sighed in relief, although they were still unaware that Ares had died because it was just less than a minute ago.
They all glanced happily at the tree being completely fine, and down below as the elven Kingdom was still prospering…
But… after that, Aphrodite began to cry, she suddenly sensed the "bond" with her children be cut down, they had died.
"We managed to save this tree but my children…! Ohh… Sniff…" she cried, alongside Dyonisos who also lost a child before he could come to save him.
Athena glanced at her sibling's cry desperately with an enormous bitterness, as she began to look for Ares.
"Wait, where's Ares? If Tereus was here… he should also…" she muttered.
"Ares? You're right, he's not… here… Did he teleport somewhere else? Who will tell him about Tereus…?" asked Hermes.
"How odd, why did he went somewhere else- Ah!" muttered Artemis, as all the Gods were paralyzed in place once more.
Rather late, they felt the bond with Ares disappear, as if one of the petals of the flower that they made up had disappeared, this was their intricate family connection through divine soul links.
When one Soul Link disappeared… it was because that person was dead.
The Gods began to tremble in fear, despair, and frustration.
Without even realizing it, Ares had just died…
It was incredibly sudden, they were not even able to see how or who did it.
It could have been Kireina's clone, or someone completely different…
But it was already quite sure… he had indeed died.
"This is… hopeless! How could it be possible?! What kind of trickery is this?! Ares is dead?! I can't… I won't believe this!" cried Hermes.
"He… He had indeed died… It can't… be… But… no… NOOO!" cried Aphrodite, she felt like she was about to pull her own hair off in sorrowful pain.
"Ares… Brother…" sighed Dyonisos.
"Ares… how did he die? Father… Father must already know… what will he think about this?" sighed Athena.
"Kireina….! It was KIREINA! That damn fiend of the depths of hell!!! Curse her! Curse her damn life!" roared Artemis in complete anger, glaring at the tree.
"It was to save this damn tree that we ended losing the life of another one of our siblings?!" she asked, suddenly pointing an arrow at it, and shooting it!
"You idiot! Are you planning on throwing down the dam Yggdrasil Sprout!?" asked Hermes, stopping Artemis, yet it was too late, as her arrow already reached it!
CLASH!
The arrow made of Divinity kept pushing through the flesh of the tree, getting all the way in…!
BOOOM!
Suddenly, a loud explosion was heard behind the tree…
Everyone fell silent after that.
What they saw was not normal.
The tree was indeed physical, it was not an ethereal thing, if it were to be hit by an arrow, it should definitely explode or be damaged a bit…
Yet… the arrow easily went through all of it as if the entire tree were intangible, this couldn't possibly be right!
"Wait… No… This can't… possibly be…!" muttered Athena in disbelief.
The Gods quickly flew directly towards the tree, touching it!
Yet… they didn't felt anything!
It was as if the tree was a mere…
"Illusion! It is an illusion! How could it even deceive us?! How has Kireina improved with her illusion attribute this much?!" asked Dyonisos in disbelief.
"Even me… she deceived even me!" roared Aphrodite.
Kireina had left a gift to them.
A perfect replication of the Yggdrasil Sprout made entirely through illusions!
The Gods could only discern it if something physical were to touch it, but from its very presence to its vivid colors, and everything… it was just like the real deal!
"T-Then…!"
Hermes quickly flew down below into the elven Kingdom, throwing a rock into it!
Flash!
Boom!
The rock suddenly went through the people walking as if nothing, hitting the empty ground down below, revealing a gigantic crater…
The most surprising thing was that the illusion continued showing and the people continued walking and talking… it was incredibly real and vivid it even produced sounds.
However, before all of this illusion, there was only a large hole where all of this used to be, Kireina had simply snatched it all away.
The… she kept here just making an illusion for them?!
"We lost it?! We lost the tree!" cried Dyonisos in anger and frustration!
It was right, they lost the tree…
The tree that they had tried to protect was gone, Kireina snatched it already!
She had just created an Illusion to play with their minds and deceive them so she could get some more time and teleport somewhere else!
Or… was she just doing it out of pleasure?
Perhaps she simply liked to see the God's faces despair in confusion and anger as she challenged any logic left behind within their feeble minds.
But she had already reached such a goal, the Gods' spirits were completely broken, they didn't even know what to think anymore…
After all, they had gone all out against her, she escaped, and when they saw the large tree, thinking that this was the tree they were protecting, the precious treasure of the Realm which brought forth a lot of life energy all around while purifying the miasma.
But it was all a mere illusion made by Kireina's malicious intentions, the tree was gone, and even the elves were gone, this was all a trick, a façade!
Even Kireina's expressions when she saw them might have been faked, she was just playing around with them!
Kireina had simply become someone just too capable of deceiving others… Her expressions, reactions, amazing illusions…
How much of what she said or acted like was fake and where did the real Kireina start from?
How shrewd was she to do such a thing?
Was there any limit to her plans, to her maliciousness?
The Gods began to despair.
In fact, despair was the only thing that they could harbor at this point, nothing else…
"Everything… was so hopeless from the very beginning?" wondered Aphrodite.
"For now… let's go back to the Lower Realm, let's reunite with Apollo and Father… We need to inform them of the bad news… And we need to ask Baltis for help, and what we could do…" said Athena.
"Yes… you're right, sister…" Sighed Hermes.
The Gods quickly activated their Teleportation Crystals and disappeared from the scene.
Meanwhile, within the peaks of a snowy mountain that led to the outside of the realm, a natural wall made by the Border Continent to shield it against outer space, the figure of a beautiful fairy emerged out of thin air.
She appeared right above what seemed to be a large nest made of branches and bones.
"Ah, this brings back memories…" she sighed, this was the nest of the Wyverns, which Kireina had met when she traveled here alongside Rimuru and Wagyu.
This was also the time when the Wyverns told him the name of the Realm, and also of the world, she had been reincarnated in.
She still remembered this place, as she knew it was rather desolated due to its ridiculous height, although she reached this place when she was a mere butterfly, not even Gods were here for some reason, perhaps because the place was too close to the outer space.
After all, just by glancing behind her, there was a beautiful starry night, making a complete contrast with the beautiful blue sky above, where the sun was hitting strong.
After inspecting enough, Kireina decided to settle down here, depositing her Divine Realm into the spatial layers and then getting inside of it.
Reaching The beautiful and vast world of her Divine Realm, she flew over the skies until she reached a place that was mostly empty grass fields…
In the middle of it, there was an enormous and resplendent tree, so big and beautiful that it was almost surreal to the eyes of those that had never seen it before.
Its bark incredibly firm, and probably thicker than several mountains packed together.
Its branches were so large, vast, and long that they reached the Heaven Layer of her Divine Realm, all the way to the Space Layer, even touching the Dream World.
Meanwhile, its roots were so enormous they extended all the way down to the depths of the Hell Layer, and even reaching even lower…
It constantly absorbed energies and converted them into life energy and mana.
It was constantly filtering any impurities within the Divine Realm, and glowing brightly with a golden aura.
"Magnificent…" said Kireina, as she smiled pleasantly.
-----
